Friday, August 17, 2012

Meet me at the mall

We went to JC Penny yesterday to get the boys their free Back-to-School haircuts. We pulled up to the mall, and Ollie let out an impressed exclamation,

“Whoa, that store is HUGE!!”

Scanning my memories, I realized that Ollie (and probably Gabe) couldn’t remember ever going to a mall. The last time we went was three years ago, when we took our Chinese exchange students for a taste of American life.

I have to laugh at myself for not stepping foot in a mall for so long, considering my “deprived childhood”, when I can remember lamenting that the nearest mall was a couple of hours away. Going to the mall always made me feel like a country bumpkin, with the huge window-lit ceilings, the elevators and escalators, and the noisy food courts. I watched my boys’ overstimulated eyes (after their very first professional haircuts) as we walked through yesterday, and laughed at young Katie. I live in a city now, but going to the mall to kill time is simply not a part of our family culture.

Going to Target, eating free samples and snacking on popcorn, however, is a part of the Coleman family culture. And Kmart is not Target. So I suppose I did lead a deprived childhood after all.

On a completely separate note, for those of you who have spent any time with Carina in the last few months, I am sure you can hear in your head the very sound that she was making when this picture was taken. And for that, I apologize.

4 comments:

Yeah, we chill at CostCo and eat samples too. I do occationally take the kids to the "play area" at the mall. It's been so hot & the air has been so terrible with the fires we haven't been able to play at the park. But the fake tree house at our mall is second best!

Our Target is attached to the mall, so we make frequent trips. In CA we made a lot of trips too for the play areas. But now, with 4 kids, the rides on the carousel are getting a little pricey, Rae is too big for the play area and a stroll around the mall is not relaxing at all. We have to go tomorrow for Rae's haircut and I'd really like to go to Bath and Body Works - we'll see.

Claire is worse than ever with her "MA MA!" about everything. I hope Carina didn't pick that up.

Our mall here is south of 83, which means it is PACKED with "tourists" from a few miles south. Went there once and hope I don't have to go again. No play areas, anyway. But we have 3 Targets that we go to quite regularly.